Wasting your time with things I find interesting, amusing, or enraging. Reinke does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations

JOBSEARCH: “Eliminating the unemployed” will be punished in the marketplace; no law required

I read this article on The Huffington Post: Disturbing Job Ads: ‘The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered.’

In my opinion (Jason Alba, not Career Resumes),

*** end quote ***

>should be illegal

Argh! Sorry, but I “violently” disagree. Well as “violently” as a little L libertarian can.

Perhaps, I can illustrate the “dead end” and counter-productive nature of that reaction.

We have laws against “age discrimination”, how well are they working? Ditto “sex”. Ditto “race”. Ditto, ditto, ditto.

Using the “guns of gooferment” just ensures that it will be our collective feet that are getting shot.

Let’s examine how well WW2 Wage and Price controls worked for today’s employees. We have the “benefits trap” that tie health benefits with employment by laws and tax policy that are inescapable.

ERISA rules, make it more expensive to do business in the US.

Departing from the original Constitutional method of financing the Federal Gooferment with excise taxes and tariffs allows the exporting of jobs overseas.

Creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, (which by the way ain’t Federal, doesn’t Reserve squat, and ain’t a Bank), allows the Gooferment to monetize spending into debt and distort the marketplace interest rate. That creates “malinvestment” in the marketplace. And, the investor, entrepreneurs, the poor, the fixed income, and the worker suffers.

So, please, immediately any thought of “illegality”. It will do nothing to solve, ameliorate, or even prevent the problem. Making something “illegal” just: drives it underground (i.e., age = overqualified), increases costs (i.e., EOE = dumb disclaimers on any job ad), and doesn’t solve the problem (i.e., resumes with gaps will still be dumped automagically).

>Does being unemployed change your

Yes, it does. It’s affects your whole attitude about life, your self-worth, and your outlook. Hopefully for the better. But not necessarily. Once you’ve been nuked, I feel you become a “turkey”. You’re never as self-confident as you were pre-unemployment. That may be good. That may be just “growing up”. That may be a spark to do bigger and better thing (e.g., you with Jibber Jobber). While you’re unemployed, some of your dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom) ages. Data ages badly; wisdom perhaps not at all. In the Technology arena, a month can be like a life time. (A funny story: I know one techie, who was out so long when his particular technology went out of fashion, that he went to sell cars. When that didn’t work out five years later, the technology pendulum had swung back and his tech was back in style and he picked up where he left off. Just lucky or evidence of the stupidity of large organizations. It was hard on him, but he survived.)

>still a lot of ignorant thinking to change

I think that contains the seed of what will happen. Don’t you think that turkeys will have long memories? What will be that company’s reputation in the future when it has to compete for talent? And, the pendulum always swings.

And the HR type that initiated that type of restriction may not have a very long career in HR.

The economists always point out that irrational discrimination or discrimination in socially unacceptable manner costs the company dramatically. “Irrational”, like “No blonds”, eliminates all Swedes. This means that their hiring pool is artificially constricted. If that company wants to hire a Swedish translator, they may have to pay more or be unable to fill the position. That company would be at a competitive disadvantage and would lose in the marketplace. “Socially unacceptable”, like “No <insert favorite minority>”, will bring about a boycott by the minority and their sympathizers. (Note, the state transit racial segregation laws were vigorously opposed by white bus and train owners because they fear financial ruin. Prior to those laws, no one had to sit at the back of the bus.) The Free Market administers discipline quickly!

“Eliminating the unemployed” will be subverted (i.e., everyone will have their own consulting company and internet side businesses), marginalized (i.e., folks will make them “anathema”), and eventually punished by the invisible hand of the marketplace (i.e., hiring the employed will raise their costs, they will miss “bargains”, and be at a financial disadvantage to their competitors).

We, as a society, “we” collectively “waste” expensively a lot of “human resources”. From around age 15 to age 25, we confine workers to what is euphemistically called “school” from which they emerge with a bug debt, unrealistic expectations, and no ROI. From age 50 to 65, “we” again discriminate against the “older expensive worker”. From age 65 to 75, “we” again waste frivolously and expensively in “retirement”. With life spans lengthening and political, financial, and intellectual memes failing to recognize and adapt. we have BIGGER problems to solve.

The silver lining is that: (1) such stupidity will be punished in the marketplace; (2) the unemployed will compete by forming their own businesses (as you know, I think were bound to become a nation of one man bands like the movie industry); and (3) Americans have rebellion, energy, and innovation in their genes and memes.

We will survive. The turkeys will inherit the earth! So lets go peck them to death!

# # # # #

I did over look three ideas which I should have gotten in about unemployment and how it changes the individual.

(1) It wipes out your savings.

It does something else.

(2) You never look at companies the same way again. Your motivation never aligns with the company’s again. Any company. It’s like the monologue by the character Colonel Jessep played by Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”.

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, … … Because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want it all to be back the way it was. You hang on every illusion that it was all just a mistake.”

One of the points I missed was that: (3) you still cling to the innocence that you deep down in your heart know it was all a mistake. Your name just wound up on the wrong list. You’re really not the turkey. But like we used to say in Delta Beta Mu a long time ago, you’re a turky because you being at the turkey farm is prima facie evidence that you’re a turkey and it was not a mistake. The sooner you learn that the better off you will be.

# # # # #

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 12:37 and is filed under JOBSEARCH. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.